Link, not Zelda.

For all the bitching and complaining we all do about the WBC…it is actually a pretty cool thing. It, of course, does a lot for the game internationally, and I personally enjoy watching the televised WBC games much more than televised Spring Training games. I happened to catch the final few innings of the championship game last night, as Yu Darvish blew the lead. Japan quickly regained it in the following half-inning, and Darvish ended up closing it out, luckily (and “stuff-ily” referring to his actual ability to pitch well). The tournament may not be entirely “fair” as the US is still trying to get in “baseball shape,” while other countries are already in that “baseball shape.” So the timing of the event may need adjusting, but the concept is pretty cool. I believe someone already suggested this, but having it every four years might be better, and having it after the MLB season should be better too. Every two years would be fun, but I don’t know how many players will want to play more baseball when November rolls around. If it is every four years, then more players will probably want to play, knowing they don’t have to do it every other year, just once every four. Since it is still kind of new, they could do it two years from now, in November, and then wait four years for the following one (2015).

Bert Blyleven was speaking on ESPN about Curt Schilling’s Hall of Fame candidacy, and he was “pro-Schilling.” I agree with Bert about Schilling being worthy, and I have no problem with Blyleven himself getting in, or for Blyleven himself being an advocate–publicly–for his own enhrinement. But Blyleven’s best chance is to have the Sabermetrics followers boost his candidacy, something that has been done a lot up until now. But Blyleven said that he thinks Morris should get in too, something that the stat-heads are not going to like. I personally don’t believe an ERA+ of 105 deserves to be enshrined, but that is just my opinion. And Bly thinking that Morris is worthy probably won’t hurt his own chances, but he should get on board and start spurting out some “Sabermetric” stats if he really wants to get in–which seems to be the case. And of course thos stats only hurt Morris’ chances.

Bill Simmons wrote a decent article about stats, but mostly stats in basketball. But he does refer to some baseball stuff within. But Bill, I don’t think Pecota is a “stat.” It’s a projection system, buddy. 🙂

I wouldn’t ordinarily argue that a pitcher should get into the HOF because he had good postseason numbers, but Schilling was absolutely dominant in the playoffs. He also had a decent sample size of 133.1 postseason innings pitched, more than most pitchers already enshrined in Cooperstown. He certainly wasn’t too bad in the regular season either, with a career ERA+ of 127.I can’t help but wonder if Curt’s personality might hurt his chances of getting in, though. That kind of thing really shouldn’t matter, but a lot of writers don’t vote for guys simply because they don’t like them. -Erinhttp://plunking-gomez.mblogs.com

Luckily everyone has five years to look at it. So I guess if you wish to take a few years off and only apply three years to the research then it would be ok :). But something tells me Schilling will find a way to make himself heard. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he starts naming names in regards to steroids to keep himself in the spotlight. I don’t know that he would actually do that, but I wouldn’t be surprised of it either.